Thousands of women in the UK may be suffering from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after giving birth, a study has found. Lead researcher and GP Dr Megan Foreman said the University of East Anglia (UEA) report showed one in 20 new mothers developed PTSD. Women can suffer from the disorder after a difficult pregnancy or birth and symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety and persistent troubling thoughts.
"We're calling for research to look at how to improve the care women get and how to improve the guidelines, so GPs have a really evidence-based and structured system," she said. Foreman said guidelines needed to be produced so doctors could follow them "if they're unsure about how to look after these women". "I think women need to be empowered with information so they feel in control, and that when they've had a baby, if they feel things aren't right, they know where to go." Maternal suicides remain the leading cause of deaths in women between six weeks and a year after pregnancy, recent figures show.
Although birth trauma is mentioned in national guidance from NICE , external and NHS England, the Diagnosing in the Dark report , external showed GPs were not given practical advice on how to measure severity, assess risk or decide who needed specialist treatment. "People will always say it's difficult to offer the level of support we'd like because services are overstretched," said Foreman. "But what we'd really like to do - working with women - is to look at how we can, in a realistic way, improve things." Chloe Mallett, 31, from Watton in Norfolk, was diagnosed with postnatal anxiety after giving birth to her son in June 2025 following a five-year struggle to conceive.
The former sales administrator had started to pursue adopting a child, when she found out she was pregnant. Mallett said while she had a "fantastic" hospital birth, her long quest to get pregnant "triggered my protective nature and I went into overdrive". She said she was troubled by intrusive thoughts and felt unable to leave her son with anyone but his father.
Mallett said she had been cared for during her pregnancy and for a month after the birth by the same midwife, who she had got to know well. But she felt she lost that reassurance once health visitors took over, who made two or three visits over the next four months. The new mother said she had been "confused" by her thoughts, before a health visitor told her to go to her GP.
Mallett said she was initially referred to counselling but felt it did not help. She was then prescribed anti-depressants, which "slowed down" her panic, and she also found solace in talking to fellow new mums at a baby group. She said: "Having that group was probably the only thing that got me through the hardest point - being able to talk and someone go 'yeah, I felt like that'.
"Sometimes people don't like to talk about it - I want to be the one to talk about it because if I can help somebody... then that's fantastic." Mallett said she felt while there was help out there, not enough parents knew about services available.
Source: BBC
